Okay, one thing that I definitely need to stop doing is playing video games and watching videos of people playing video games.

That stuff is so addictive, but it is really just a huge time sink.

I can easily burn 1, 2, or 3+ hours a day just from video games, whether it be actually playing them or just watching videos of them

I think the solution is just to really just ask myself, literally out loud, what I’m supposed to be doing right now.

And I made my schedule about what I should be doing.

Napping, studying, exercising.

Video games are not on the schedule!

Okay, let’s make a possible schedule that I can follow for about the next 2 months:

5:00 Wake up

5:30-6:30 Work

6:30-8:00 Nap

8:00-11:30 Breakfast, Study, any quick local errands

11:30-13:30: Outside in the sunshine + Study, Exercise

13:30-14:30 Nap

14:30-16:00 Work

16:00-17:00 Break Time, Shower

17:00-18:30 Work

18:30-19:00 Dinner

19:00-20:00 Study

20:00-21:00 Get ready to sleep

20:00 Sleep (9 hours)

21:00 Sleep (8 hours)

22:00 Sleep (7 hours)

This is a sample schedule.

Also, after I finish my morning work at 6:30 am, I don’t really feel tired and end up staying up instead of going back to sleep.

However, I do feel like I need to put a nap somewhere into my schedule because I feel like a wreck by the end of the day.

Yikes, I really messed up my sleep.

Sleep and focus are so closely connected.

When my sleep is really good, I am able to study very well.

When my sleep is really bad, it’s really hard for me to study and my brain feels like it’s surrounded in fog.

Brain fog, I guess.

I think I need to also think about taking a nap and scheduling it.

Even when I wake up really early after just 6 to 7 hours of sleep, after working for 1 hour and seeing the sunrise, I don’t feel like going back to sleep.

So maybe I have to sleep before I start working again in the afternoon.

Maybe 1:30pm to 2:15pm of nap time.

Morning definitely seems to be the most productive for me.

I am able to review ton of flashcards and get a lot of studying done.

However, the important thing I need to remember is that the quality of my sleep the night before dictates the quality of my morning the next day.

So I should aim to sleep by 8:30-9:00pm and then wake up fresh and ready to keep that momentum going.

The slowest flashcards for me have been the English to Japanese flashcards since I’m basically learning new data, whereas the Kanji flashcards are pretty easy since I’ve studied them before, so it’s more a matter of re-learning or reviewing data, instead of starting from scratch.

So today was a very interesting day.

It is one of my free days, and I had a lot of things I planned to do.

However, since my sleep schedule for the past week has been so bad, I was really sleepy.

I’ve been averaging maybe 6-7 hours of sleep a day.

I thought I would accomplish a lot of things today, but I ended up just knocking out after a big lunch and slept for about 4 hours.

The moral of the story is that I need to make sure my sleep is on point so I can make sure I can keep studying, working, and doing my research.

The most actionable thing is probably getting ready for bed at 8pm, and finally sleep at 9pm, since I need to wake up at 5am.

Hmmm . . . I’m thinking of attacking all my projects little by little.

Now that I have some relatively stable habits built already, maybe now it’s time to build on top of them.

Also, studying 50 new cards a day plus reviews won’t take too much time hopefully, but reviews do add up, and I may not be able to keep up the pace.

However, when it comes to producing data, I think 50 new pieces of data for my different projects is a pretty good pace since I don’t plan on going back to review and proofread the data until I’m basically done with a significant amount, like over 2000 data points.

By then, I can use some spreadsheet magic to edit and sort things and work through the data with ease.

One thing that I’ve been saying I need to do for the longest time is making videos.

I think I may start in a few months, if I get a powerful enough computer to do the kind of workload I want to do.

Unfortunately, my current computer isn’t powerful enough to handle recording two continuous video streams at once.

It can handle one stream of video fine without hiccups, but I really want to have 2 streams.

The idea is to have the main camera record me writing on a whiteboard that’s on a table, and the second camera will be used to record my face and myself talking.

I need to plan this out though.

I might be spreading myself too thin, but I do truly feel that it is IMPERATIVE for me to make videos of my research.

I think I need to make a publishing schedule for my research (data blog posts, videos) in addition to my study schedule.

So I would say that my study habits are pretty consistent now.

Although they are not perfect, they are definitely making me progress.

I think I should have both a “minimum” goal and a “stretch” goal to keep me motivated.

Because if I keep aiming too high and failing, I feel like I keep failing every day.

However, if I keep aiming low and get that small feeling of success every day, I think it helps boost my confidence.

Anyway, I think it’s time for me to start thinking about my research as well.

Because while it’s great to focus on studying, I need to also focus on what my contribution to the world of  Japanese and Korean linguistics.

I think I will start just doing a couple lines of research each day to start, just to get the ball rolling.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the possibility of me not getting in for a 2022 intake and having to wait until 2023.

It wouldn’t be the end of the world, and I am very certain that by then, my Korean, Japanese, and Kanji/Hanja proficiencies would be very high, at least JLPT N2 and TOPIK 5.

Also, I will have made a lot of progress on my own personal projects, including rewriting the Japanese and Okinawan languages into Pahanngana and making books about how to remember the Kanji and Hanja.

I am seriously considering this possibility, because it is definitely less pressure and more relaxed, and it would allow me to approach multiple projects at the same time, in addition to me getting full time work.

Right now, I’m just working part time, and already I feel like I don’t have enough time to do all my daily tasks.

We’ll see, I think pushing myself to do as much as possible in the shortest amount of time possible is a good test for me to improve my deep focus and remove distractions, so I should still aim to try for the 2022 intake, and have the 2023 intake plan as a backup.

Okay, I’m going to think about my timelines.

My original plan was to apply for the 2022 MEXT Scholarship.

However, I did some more research into the timeline of this whole thing.

I’m not sure if I’m reading the data correctly, but it seems like for me to start in 2022, I would have to apply in August/September 2021, which is next year.

It seems that there are 2 application periods. I’m not sure exactly how it will work.

Apply 8/2021 – Start 9/2022 ???

Apply 1/2022 – Start 9/2022 ??? 

I think I’m going to have to really get in touch with the Japanese consulate to really iron out the details.

However, One thing that I’m content and confident about is that even if I don’t get in in 2022, I’m 99% confident that I can get in in 2023, even though simply saying that feels like a lifetime away.

So the backup plan would be:

Apply 8/2022 – Start 9/2023

Apply 1/2023 – Start 9/2023